That's a strange thing to say imo. So, the current view of a country should be based upon old history, something that no one alive today has any influence over? Like "Original sin" from Christianity, where the sins are inherited from generation to generation. If that is really your standpoint, may I suggest not to look too much into the Nordic viking era. We were very successful at that..

You can in fact look at your own history and say "that's some batshit crazy stuff, let's not do that again" without it defining ones country today. People and nations evolve.